


otherwise the dark

by chainofclovers



Category: Grace and Frankie (TV)
Genre: F/F, Post-Season/Series 04
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-03
Updated: 2019-01-03
Packaged: 2019-10-03 05:42:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17278157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chainofclovers/pseuds/chainofclovers
Summary: Then Babe left, but not for hell, and Grace has had to walk around with an unsolved mystery ever since.





	otherwise the dark

**Author's Note:**

> Have you ever thought "Well, it's January 2nd, but I think I'll pop over to AO3 to see if there's any brand new Christmas-themed mutual masturbation fic about 74-year-old women." 
> 
> Do you ever wonder "Why don't more stories include epigraphs from Mitski _and_ the Bible?" 
> 
> Do you sometimes wish more erotica started out with the protagonist attempting nostalgic catharsis at church? 
> 
> Great! Here you go! This is the fic some little part of me has wanted to write since the vibrator prototypes arrived in episode 3x3 and Grace Hanson said "Here?!? In the same room?!?" Enjoy!

_But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart._  
Luke 2:19

.

 _I gave too much of my heart tonight_  
_Can you come to where I'm staying_  
_And make some extra love_  
_That I can save til tomorrow's show_  
Mitski, “Remember My Name”

.

 _Otherwise: the dark, and our bodies, two strange women trying to touch each other._  
Franny Choi, from “Perihelion: A History of Touch”

.

“Grandma Grace? Are you and Frankie gonna get a divorce?”

“Maddie, what are you talking about?” Grace glances up at the rearview mirror and tries to find Madison’s eyes, but she’s looking out the window. It’s dusk, and they’re driving down a street with a lot of Christmas lights, each house trying hard to outdo the others—or maybe the people who live in these houses are simply happy. Full of the Christmas spirit. The sky is just dark enough for the lights to glow against Maddie’s face. She’s got a tiny velour purse next to her in the backseat, and she’s wearing a dress Grace hasn’t seen before. She’s trying so hard to seem grown up—she keeps offering everyone mints from a little tin in her purse—that she looks younger than she normally does.

“Well, even in your new house, you have separate bedrooms, and that’s one of the signs.” Madison seems to hesitate before speaking again. “And you’re always arguing.” 

“Honey, Frankie and I aren’t married.”

“Oh.” 

“And even if we were, we wouldn’t get a divorce.” Well, that isn’t exactly what she meant to say.

“So you’re just living in sin?”

“Have you been talking to Aunt Brianna?”

“No?”

 _We’re housemates_ , Grace could say. _We’re best friends. I don’t know. It’s none of your business._ “We’re almost to the church. Let’s just have a nice time, okay?”

“Okay.” Madison sounds skeptical, and for good reason. Mallory doesn’t take the kids to church, and hasn’t gone much herself since well before Macklin was born. Grace used to attend services every Sunday and Bible study on Wednesdays, but she hasn’t attended regularly in years, and she’s never nagged Mallory about whether or not she planned to raise her kids in the faith. Still, although Grace was never sentimental about it, church was important to her for a long time. Then Robert and Sol came out and Grace’s life suddenly had nothing in it (can’t show up at church with nothing). Then, more gradually, her life was full of everything (can’t stop everything for church). She’s been too busy to go, too busy to stop and think about what that means. She hasn’t exactly missed it, but something’s pulled her back around to the idea here at the end of the year. She and Frankie are settled in their new house, and the kids have been so careful and apologetic about everything that happened to get them there. Brianna, Barry, Mallory, and the kids are staying over at the house tonight so they can all be together for Christmas morning, and maybe they need some carols and candles and church magic, something external to help them heal.

“We’ll pass,” Brianna had said when Grace floated the idea. “We’ll come over after you’re done.” But everyone else is going—even Frankie, who’d shrugged agreeably at the idea of church on Christmas Eve. “Why not?” she’d said. “It’s obviously not my thing, but your thing could be fun.” Frankie’s in Mallory’s car, having been amenable to Maddie’s request for a trade, and Grace thinks briefly—again, because she keeps thinking it—about how Maddie’s too small to ride in the front seat anyway, and Frankie could have ridden with them no matter what.

“One more thing, though?” Madison says.

“Yeah?”

“I know Santa isn’t real and Mom’s driving me crazy about it.”

Grace hides a smile. This, surely, is the real reason Maddie begged to go on her car. “So you figured it out.”

“Well, yeah, _last year_ , and I faked it, but now I’ve told Mom and she’s paranoid I’m gonna ruin Christmas.”

“The twins are just getting old enough to believe.” Grace glances at the mirror again. This time, Madison’s looking back. “Can you help us keep the secret so it stays special for them?”

Madison grins. “I didn’t think of it like that.” 

The relief Grace feels is bigger than this moment strictly warrants. She’s said the right thing. These days, that’s practically a miracle. 

Although Grace knows the way to the church, she’s been following Mallory. But Mallory pulls into an intersection on a yellow light, and Grace gets stuck at the red. It’s a long light, and several minutes pass before she moves forward again. She and Madison are quiet for the rest of the drive, quiet as she parallel parks on a side street near St. Paul’s, quiet as they walk down the block and into the cathedral. Grace has never been to a service here, and for that she’s grateful. An Episcopal service, progressive but full of tradition, seems unlikely to offend anyone. And as a stranger to the church on Christmas Eve, an evening full of strangers at church, no one is going to invite her to a potluck or encourage her to consider adult education classes or corner her in the lobby to share the verbal equivalent of _Chicken Soup for the Soul_. She hopes.

The sanctuary’s crowded, with just enough space for Grace and Madison to squeeze into the pew where Frankie, Mallory, and the remaining kids already sit. Everyone’s armed with programs and little candles in cardboard holders for, Grace assumes, a candlelit rendition of “Silent Night.” The toddlers have glow sticks. Frankie’s on the far end of their group, with a middle-aged man and woman seated to her immediate left. As Grace ushers Madison into the seat next to Mallory, Frankie glances at Grace with an apologetic wince, which Grace returns. She feels sad in a simple way, because when she imagined this evening she imagined sitting next to Frankie and now she’s way over there.

Church is bad for the knees: as soon as Grace sits down the choir stands, and the congregation rises to join them. Grace looks around the sanctuary during the first carol. She’d had tunnel vision on the way in, anxious about being late, but now she can appreciate the stone walls, which look cool to the touch; the vaulted ceilings; the blue stained glass, radiant even though it’s dark outside. This church doesn’t smell Catholic, but it still smells holy, fragrant and sharp. It’s someone else’s holiness, and that bothers her, the feeling like standing at a foggy window trying to get a good view of what’s inside.

But Grace would feel this way standing in the midst of a Catholic holiness too, and she would feel this way if she returned to the Lutheran holiness of her childhood. She has one pervasive thought, louder now that she’s here in the Anglican holiness: _I don’t know_. The unknowingness started when she helped Frankie help Babe kill herself and Babe didn’t go to hell. That much, at least, she knows with as much certainty as she knows she has eyes and a nose and a mouth. When Babe was still alive, Grace desperately tried to advocate for what she thought God wanted, but by then she’d already spent a couple years only thinking about God when she felt profoundly guilty or profoundly grateful. Then Babe left, but not for hell, and Grace has had to walk around with an unsolved mystery ever since. There are characters—God, and Jesus, sort of, and Frankie, and Babe, and Grace’s parents frozen in time, and her knowingly godless children and her innocently godless grandchildren, and herself at every age—but there’s barely a plot. She’s missing something, and she could easily run out of time before she figures it out what she needs to make her life make sense.

 _This was a mistake_ , Grace thinks, and right then a classical guitarist starts “Greensleeves.” A solo vocalist, a shawl-draped middle-aged woman with long black hair and futuristic boots, joins him to turn the song into “What Child Is This?” “Greensleeves” is Grace’s favorite, but now she has to miss her mother, and her mother didn’t even like her very much. Nor did she like “Greensleeves.” It’s a perverse connection, unfrayed by time. She glances down the pew. Frankie’s already looking at her, a soft smile on her face. She knows all about Grace and Grace’s mother and “Greensleeves.” Frankie talks a lot, but sometimes—often—she pauses the monologue and asks Grace a question, and Grace is so used to the noise that she’s tricked into filling the silence with her own voice, talks around and around the plotless problems and plotless pleasures that make up her life. Grace has told Frankie things she’s never even considered saying to anyone else, has shared things she didn’t know were true until she’s spoken them aloud, but the mystery remains.

Frankie watches Grace for the rest of the service. Grace feels it even when she isn’t looking back, the warm safety of Frankie’s gaze a little uncomfortable. Frankie watches her as the overhead lights dim and the flame passes pew to pew, person to person. Watches her in the brightness of the candlelit sanctuary, the watching a silent beam cutting through the hymn-filled room.

.

Maddie returns to Mallory’s car for the drive home, and Frankie climbs into the front seat of Grace’s. 

“What’d you think?” Grace asks as they buckle their seat belts. She pulls away from the curb.

“It was very pretty and very weird, which is, you know, extremely you.” Frankie waves her arms in Grace’s direction, her hands a flurry of pretty weirdness. “What did you think?”

She could quip or joke or write a mini-review of the sermon on the spot, but her mind goes blank. “I don’t know. I don’t know what I think.”

Frankie nods. “That’s cool. Very agnostic of you.” She screws up her face. Grace takes her eyes off the road just long enough to see it. “Really, though, I think it’s beautiful that you don’t know. It’s all so wild. Doesn’t unknowingness seem way more sane than the alternatives?” Of course Frankie would take failure to comment on a church service as a sign of profound theological uncertainty, and of course she's right. Frankie sighs. “It seems like there should be snow on the ground.” 

The temperature has been in the sixties for most of the day, but at the threshold between the church and the outdoors Grace had briefly imagined there were flakes in the sky. But the sky had been bright with light pollution, not snow. “It snowed almost every Christmas when I was a kid.”

“God, I bet you were a cute kid.”

They sit in silence for most of the drive home. Grace realizes halfway through that she hasn’t put any music on, but by then it seems too late. “Oh, hey,” Frankie says when Grace turns into their new neighborhood. “Don’t be mad at me, but—”

“What?”

“I told Mallory to take my room tonight, so she doesn’t have to sneak into the room with all the kids after she finishes wrapping presents.” 

“Fine,” Grace says. It’s not fine. There’s too much to do, too much to think about, too many people, and she’d counted on being alone in her room tonight to nurse the inevitable bad mood in private. She feels—heartbroken is an overstatement, but she aches on that spectrum. 

“Are you mad?”

“No,” she says, and this at least is honest. How can she be angry?

“Roomies!” Frankie says, and her attention almost immediately flits elsewhere. “Wow, look at that inflatable sleigh. That’s the tackiest thing I’ve seen in my life.” 

.

It’s hours before Grace can go to bed, but when she trudges down the hall to her room she’s pretty certain everything is in order for Christmas morning. The yeasted waffle batter sits covered on the counter; the coffeemaker’s prepped and programmed; she’s sliced fruit and arranged it on a tray, sprinkled the apples with lemon juice so they stay fresh, stacked the tray in the refrigerator among the containers of cookie dough, the pitcher of not-yet-spiked punch. The presents wait patiently under the tree in the living room, and all the common spaces are tidy. She’s gotten her parents’ holiday dishware out of the china cabinet, put rings around the red cloth napkins, added the extra leaf to the dining room table.

Frankie already lies down with her eyes closed. She’s turned down the covers on Grace’s side of the bed. Her toothbrush and face wash and towel sit on the countertop in Grace’s bathroom; they take up an inconvenient amount of space, though it’s obvious Frankie has tried to stack everything neatly.

“Now that you’re here, you can get up with me when the alarm goes off,” Grace says once she’s slid into bed and turned out the light. 

Frankie opens her eyes, turns onto her side so they’re facing each other. “Sure,” she says. “But Grace—why are you doing all this stuff? You were Grace Hansoning at a new level in the kitchen tonight.”

“Because the kids are here and it’s Christmas. Because you have to.” This should be obvious.

“Are there presents under the tree?”

“Yes.”

“Will the adults have coffee to drink while the kids open said presents?”

“Yes.”

“Then there you go. All set.”

“I just want it to be nice,” Grace says, and she resituates herself so she’s turned away from Frankie.

“Okay,” Frankie says. She sounds like she’s lost a fight. 

Grace can’t sleep. She lies still, tries to clear out her mind, tries to imagine each room of their house in great detail, tries to tell herself the plot of the last ten books she’s read. Doesn’t let herself move even though she feels restless and warm. The room is a little cold; the warmth is all her—and Frankie, and the wrongness of not being alone when she’d wanted to be. It’s horrible to be warm but empty with the kind of emptiness that could very easily turn into despair, a despair as seasonal as cookies and “Greensleeves” and blinking lights on happy houses. 

If she were by herself, she’d chase it away. She’d get up and sneak a drink in the kitchen, or—more likely these days—she’d get out her vibrator and distract herself, make herself feel good. Alone. Full. Unsolved but enough for now. She isn’t alone, though, because Frankie’s big-hearted and messy and of the “act now, apologize later” school of thought. Grace’s old habit is to complain, but she’s the recipient of a lot of that heart, too: like tonight, when the music at church was too much and Frankie was right there with her, even from the other side of the pew. Without even thinking about it, Grace puts her hand between her legs. When she’s done it, she thinks about it, a little shocked at herself—but it’s fine, her hand is outside her pajama pants, it’s dark, she’s under the covers, Frankie’s asleep. She moves her fingers a little, just enough to feel something nice. Tomorrow, after everyone’s left and she’s actually alone, she’ll take care of herself for real. This is just a minor act of care, a private comfort between two challenging days. 

Frankie sighs, and Grace startles. She’d thought Frankie was asleep—she hadn’t done the impossible and forgotten Frankie was in her bed, but she’d felt a sense of privacy for the last stretch of minutes, and now that sense is gone. Grace wills herself not to react, not to move at all, and after a minute there’s another little exhale from the other side of the bed, and some subtle movement. Grace’s heart pounds. Can it be—is Frankie touching herself? The bed shifts a little bit more, so slight, like Frankie’s trying her best not to move around at all. Grace’s face goes hot. When Frankie sighs one more time, Grace moves a bit by pretending to adjust her shoulders, half-hoping to end this moment, half-hoping to signal to Frankie that she’s there, that she’s awake. Frankie should know that. It would be wrong not to at least try to let her know that.

Frankie freezes as soon as she registers that Grace is awake. Although there’s at least a foot and a half of distance between their bodies, Grace can feel that Frankie’s stuck and can’t move. Oh, God. Frankie might have her hand down her pajama pants, trapped with no option but to feel herself growing sticky and stiff and uncomfortable until Grace is asleep—or until Grace can convincingly act asleep and give Frankie a merciful moment of privacy in which to correct her course. And then there’s the matter of Grace’s own hand still pressed between her legs. She should slide it away. She should do that right this instant. But her body doesn’t want her to. It’s just emptiness from here on out, and she can’t bear that yet.

“Frankie—” Grace whispers, turning her head to look in Frankie’s direction. She doesn’t know why. Immediately, she wishes she hadn’t said anything.

Frankie gasps. Grace’s eyes have adjusted enough to the dark to see Frankie looking back at her. “I’m sorry, I couldn’t sleep, I thought you were asleep,” Frankie says. She sounds near tears. “You were so still.” 

“I lie awake and think. I have to, every night.” _Unless I’m drunk_ , Grace admits silently, but it’s been over a year since she was drunk enough to pass out. She’s been stuck with her thoughts—wrong, wrong, wrong, don’t forget, don’t forget—for so long. Wrong about what? Don’t forget what?

“I feel like I—like I _violated_ you. You let me stay here, and I couldn’t even manage to—” 

Now that Grace has forced this moment to happen, humiliation is the last thing she wants Frankie to feel. She’d do anything to keep Frankie from feeling ashamed. Grace hears the words only after she’s said them: “Don’t stop.”

“What?”

“Don’t stop,” she repeats.

Frankie doesn’t say anything. Her discomfort is a heat wave warming the room.

“Please?” Grace’s voice is small. She doesn’t know anything. She doesn’t know why she’s been so wrong, doesn’t know why this request feels right, like it’s a tunnel she has to walk through, like she needs the other side. “Honey,” Grace says. She always says that so easily. It feels so good to say. “I want you to feel good.”

“Oh,” Frankie says.

“Please don’t stop.” _Be honest, be honest._ “I wanted it too. I was going to touch myself too—I was, I was already starting to—” _Be honest._ “Look,” she says, though Frankie can’t see through the covers. “Look at where my hand is.”

Frankie whimpers. “Grace.” 

“Get comfortable,” Grace says, the epitome of a gracious host. But she’s not playing or going through the motions or acting out of obligation.

The bed shifts, and Grace realizes Frankie’s removing her pajama bottoms. More movement. Her underwear too? “Gonna stay covered,” Frankie mutters, securing the top sheet and comforter around her torso, settling and resettling in a way that reminds Grace of how long it always takes Frankie to settle in any time they share a bed. Finally, Frankie seems to sink back against herself. There are only small hints of movement now, and Frankie tilts up her chin in response to a sensation whose origin Grace can’t see.

“Are you, um.” Grace swallows. “Are you touching yourself?”

Frankie nods. “With my right hand. My left hand’s on my thigh. That’s how it usually is when I’m alone.” After a pause, she adds, “Keep your hand where it is? So I’m not the only one— _oh_.”

“Okay,” Grace whispers, remembering her hand as she agrees. It’s wedged tight between her legs, no chance of going anywhere, her fingers pressed against her still-clothed thigh. She turns on her side to orient herself more toward Frankie. Even as she does it, part of her longs to look away, because Frankie’s movements have clarified and it’s uncomfortably obvious what she’s doing. _Enjoy it_ , Grace thinks, and she wonders— _Can I?_ She’s encouraged Frankie to touch herself. Frankie knows she’s here. But shouldn’t she be polite and give her space even if she can’t give her privacy?

She doesn’t want to. As far as she can make out, Frankie’s expression is serious, eyes closed, lower lip folded against her teeth. Grace wants to be here, wants—is curiosity the word for this?—to feel what Frankie feels. 

“Does it—” Grace starts. _Does it feel good?_ , she almost asks, but this question seems nearly banal. Obvious. Embarrassing. “Are you okay?” she whispers. “Is this what you want?”

Frankie nods. “No way I’m stopping now—” She interrupts herself with a gasp, and arousal rings through Grace like an answering bell. Grace further tightens her own grip, she has to, because the gasp she’s heard means it’s feeling better for Frankie; it’s the sound of crossing that line between pleasure as a thing you work to give yourself and pleasure as a thing that exists and insists upon itself, a blanket laid on top of you. Frankie still has to move, still has to work, but there’s no stopping what’s going to happen. 

“Grace,” Frankie says, her hushed voice hoarse. “Put your hand on me?”

“Where?” Grace asks, no time to feel embarrassed by the question. She’s too relieved to feel embarrassed, anyway. Frankie knows she’s here, of course, but she wants her here, wants to feel her presence. 

“Just put your hand on me,” Frankie says, the request all feverish breath.

Grace already lies on her left side holding herself with her right hand. She trades hands, almost afraid to let go, and brings her right hand closer to Frankie, then scoots her whole body closer. Maybe she can hold Frankie around her middle, just gently. Not to suffocate her, just to be there. Although the comforter and top sheet have shifted as Frankie moves, they still cover her up past her hips. But her pajama top has ridden up, and Grace unthinkingly puts her hand on Frankie’s stomach. Immediately, she’s stricken: it’s too intimate, and she should move her hand away, go back to the original plan. She can’t move, though, can’t force herself to give up what she’s only just gotten to feel. She can sense Frankie’s movements much better from here, and Frankie’s skin is so warm and soft and tender. But Frankie probably wanted a hand on her shoulder, or— 

“Ahhh,” Frankie moans. “I imagined this once. I was touching myself, and you were—someone was holding me there.” 

“Oh,” Grace says. Part of her wants to be surprised that she’s been in Frankie’s imagination, but there’s too much happening, and she can’t make it all the way to any of the appropriate feelings, can’t feel shocked or flattered or uncomfortable. “Okay, um—” She rubs her fingers against Frankie’s skin. She hopes the touch resembles Frankie’s daydream. 

Frankie turns to look at her. “It takes a while,” she says, traces of the earlier embarrassment still in her voice. “Even when I’m alone and I know just what I want.”

“Take your time.” A lump forms in Grace’s throat. No one’s ever said this to her. No one’s ever stayed with her for as long as she’s needed. She swallows. “Take your time,” she says again. “Go slow.” 

They’re quiet again, Grace rubbing Frankie’s belly in big circles, feeling the tight little circles Frankie’s patterning in her own flesh. The touches are audible now, and Grace realizes it’s because Frankie’s wet. Frankie’s abdominal muscles jump beneath her touch. “You feel so good,” Grace says. _Enjoy it_. “Your skin’s so soft, and I can feel your muscles working, you must be close—”

Frankie cries out, but softly, voice breaking on the moan. “Say it again. Tell me I’m close.” 

“Take your time. But—Frankie, you’re so close.” Frankie moves faster, and her arm presses against Grace’s. “You’re so close. It’ll feel so good.” Frankie sobs. “You’re so close, honey, I can feel it—” 

Frankie’s muscles pulse against Grace’s hand, and she moves even faster, and her thighs start to shake. “Oh,” she breathes. “Oh, oh, oh.” She comes like a wave, her body rolling not against it but with it, thrashing a little as she chases the last tendrils of feeling. Grace has to shut her eyes.

When she opens them, Frankie’s looking at her, and Grace realizes she hasn’t stopped moving her hand even though Frankie’s gone still. “Do you usually keep going?” Grace asks. She stills her hand, then presses it firmly against Frankie’s abdomen, feels the soft little pillow of flesh rise around her fingers. 

Frankie looks up at the ceiling. “Not usually. Not if I’m doing it to turn off my brain so I can go to sleep. You?”

“Yeah,” Grace admits. “Even if I can’t come a second time, I keep going. It’s—it’s hard for me to stop.” With the words arrives a familiar shame, surreal for being spoken aloud. She feels the same shame when she pours herself a drink she shouldn’t have, when she works extra hours at the expense of spending time with people she cares about and who care about her, when she speaks harsh words she doesn’t even mean, when she says no to something she wants to eat. But there’s an additional barb in the fence of this particular shame, the shame of sexual appetite, because she’s the only person who’s been able to give herself enough. She can admit now that even when a man she was with made a particular effort, she didn’t want more from him. She always wants more when she’s alone and free and can touch herself or use her vibrator until there’s nothing left that matters. At least for a while. 

She founded Vybrant because of how much it meant to her to discover masturbation and because of how good it felt to be on Frankie’s side. Vybrant has made so many things better for her, has given her so much happiness. But it’s introduced a shame that hadn’t occurred to her before she received Babe’s gift—she’d thought she simply wasn’t wired for the transcendent sort of sexual love others seemed to experience, but now she has to live with the contrast between masturbation and her sad attempts to replicate those feelings with a partner. Unless she’s alone, the hunger is always bigger than the achievement. She always needs more than she gets. It’s seemed preposterous to expect anyone else to understand, and yet here’s Frankie. On her side. She’s heard what Grace just said, and she’s looking at her with tenderness. She’s asked for Grace. She wants to be here, and she’s making Grace want to be here too.

“I think I have to keep going this time,” Frankie says. She slides her hand up from between her legs and lays it over Grace’s. Her fingers get Grace’s fingers wet, and it makes Grace gasp. She’d hoped Frankie would want to keep going. Although her thoughts threatened to bring herself out of it a little, she doesn’t want to stop living in the world of Frankie’s pleasure. 

“Oh God,” Grace says. “Keep going. Please keep going.”

“Okay.” She squeezes Grace’s hand, wet now, warm now, the sensation enough to make Grace pulse between her legs.

They return to the position they were in before, but now Grace’s fingers are sticky. She smears them purposefully across Frankie’s belly, rubs back and forth, doesn’t hold back the little moans that need to exist. They need to be quiet, but it feels good to whisper together, the whispers themselves a reminder to stay hushed, to communicate with softness.

“Does it feel good?” Grace asks. It’s a fine question, she decides.

“Yeah,” Frankie says. She lifts her hips, squeaks a little, and Grace knows she’s gone inside herself with the fingers that usually rest against her thigh.

“I have lube? If you need it?”

“I’m okay,” Frankie gasps. “I’m wet—”

“Okay. Okay, honey.” Grace moves her left hand against herself, rolls her hips. She’s wet too, not enough to feel it through the fabric, but enough to tell. “I could touch you sometime,” she says. As soon as she’s said it, it’s true. It’s an actual possibility. _Be honest_. “I want to know what it’s like.” Her heart pounds. “What it’s like to be inside you.” She feels almost faint, admitting this. If she can have it, even weeks from now, or months from now, whenever Frankie wants it, if Frankie wants it—if she can have that, she’ll have enough. Finally. She’ll be full, having filled her. 

“Grace, yes. Yes.” Frankie heaves a great sobbing breath. “I can take it if it’s you. It won’t scare me.”

“Honey, I don’t want you to be scared.”

“I’m not scared. Oh, God, I’m gonna come again, I’m already—oh, oh—”

“Let me feel,” Grace says when Frankie goes still. “Please.”

Frankie’s hand is soaked. She uses it to drag Grace’s hand down between her legs. “God, it felt so good.” Grace’s fingertips meet damp coarse hair, and slick folds of skin. 

“Oh, Frankie.”

“I can’t take much more,” Frankie says. “But go inside me, please.” Grace crooks her fingers, searches with the tip of her index finger until it slips against Frankie’s entrance. “Please,” Frankie says, and keeps repeating the word as Grace slides inside with two fingers. “Oh,” Frankie says, a note of surprise in her voice. “Oh, I like that.” _Me too_ , Grace whispers, her face so close to Frankie’s. She wants to kiss her. After a few minutes, quiet and miraculous, Frankie lays her fingers against Grace’s wrist. “Okay,” she says. “More next time.” 

Grace can hardly breathe. “Next time,” she says. She’d repeat anything Frankie said, would agree to anything. She trembles as she pulls her fingers out, presses them against Frankie’s labia in thanks. 

“Will you touch yourself too?”

She has to. She’s been starting to this entire time. She can barely think. “How?” Grace asks. “How should I do it?” She doesn’t know. She’s an expert by all accounts—she’s the CEO of an entire company founded around the principle of what they’re doing here tonight—but she feels as frozen as Frankie was when she realized Grace was awake. She wants Frankie to talk her through it. 

“What were you going to do to yourself tonight?”

“I just wanted to touch myself until I fell asleep.” In sleep she would have moved her hand away, surely, but she’s struck by the sudden thought of Frankie waking up in the morning to find Grace with her hand between her legs. “Normally I use a vibrator.”

“Which one?”

Grace’s stomach swoops. She should have known Frankie would be as inquisitive in bed as she is outside it. “The Mini Ménage, often. Because—because I like it inside of me, and it’s a little easier—

“Oh my God, Grace—”

“But sometimes I use the original Ménage. If I have time, I like it better. I like having to work up to it.” Grace’s face burns. This is more than she’s ever said. 

“Penetration,” Frankie says softly, her voice a little uncertain. “That’s important to you.”

“With myself,” Grace admits. “When I’m alone.”

“Mm,” Frankie says, the syllable a warm acknowledgment. "Why don’t you do what I did, sort of. Both hands.”

“I wanna sit up a little,” Grace says. Now that she’s thought of it, she wants this badly, even though she usually lies down when she masturbates. If she sits up, maybe Frankie will come closer. And the angle will be different, and that might be good, that might help her do this in front of Frankie. 

Frankie stacks pillows behind them so their lower backs are supported, sits with Grace while she pulls off her pajama pants under the covers. “Beautiful girl,” Frankie says, though nothing’s changed that she can see. “Did you take off your underwear too?”

“Yeah,” Grace says. She leans over to take the lube jar out of her nightstand, although she’s wet when her touch lands and she doesn’t need much. She’s quiet for a while, concentrating as she slips a finger from her left hand inside herself, then another. Sometimes she has to wait to touch her clit, but as long as she’s wet she doesn’t have to wait to penetrate herself. Sometimes, when she’s alone, she lies quietly with her fingers or a vibrator inside her, enjoys the full feeling for as long as she can stand it before doing anything else. 

Frankie’s breathing fast next to her, and Grace is full but she wants more, wants Frankie. “Touch my thigh? Pull on it a little?”

“Sure,” Frankie says. She finds Grace’s thigh under the covers, her touch warm, still a little wet. “What do you mean, pull?”

“Open me,” she says, and Frankie pulls gently, opens her up. “Tell me how it feels when I’m—like that.”

“It feels good,” Frankie says. “You feel ready to feel good.”

Grace touches her clit now, gasps at the sensation, and Frankie puts her free hand on Grace’s back, rubs through the silk of her pajama top.

“This is so perfect,” Frankie says. She kisses Grace’s temple, presses her body closer, and it makes Grace’s spine tingle. “I can’t believe this, I can’t believe I’m sitting with you while we do this.” 

Grace can hear herself breathing, cutting the air into jagged edges.

“Honey,” Frankie says. “Are you open enough, do you have a good angle?” 

Frankie’s chosen simple words, but spoken like this it’s a shared vocabulary. Grace is bright with happiness. She never wants to stop. “Yeah,” she says. The orgasm starts to show up against her fingers, a hint at first, then a promise.

“Take your time,” Frankie says. “Make it feel good.” The orgasm surges against her, electric and strong, a wild thing she’s invited in. Grace lets her head fall back, listens to Frankie murmur against her cheek. _Yes, honey, that’s so beautiful, look how beautiful you are._

“Will you kiss me?” Grace asks in the moment between coming and rejoining reality, the moment in which she’d normally start back up again in earnest. She’s scared, but not too scared to ask for a kiss. She’s just come in Frankie’s arms, beautiful because Frankie said so. She’s been inside Frankie, recognized the holiness of the act as a holiness that belongs to them. Still, she’s scared of what will happen if Frankie kisses her. What it will do to her body. What it will do to her ability to keep going, day after day: without this if it turns out wrong, with this if it turns out right. For a moment, nothing happens, and now she’s scared Frankie doesn’t understand how much she needs what she’s asking for, doesn’t want to kiss her. She’s still wrong, still forgetting something she was supposed to already know.

But Frankie reaches over then, uses her fingertips to brush Grace’s hair from her forehead. She presses her lips against Grace’s, and as they kiss she doesn’t let go of Grace’s hair and face, touches her like she’ll never stop. She brings her other hand to Grace’s waist, nudges the hem of the pajama top so she can touch skin. What’s better, the kiss or the relief? The kiss. 

Frankie murmurs against Grace's lips— _okay, okay, gentle_ —as Grace pulls out of herself, lets go of herself. It's a stark feeling, her hands empty after so much touch, and she touches Frankie's thigh with her own wet fingers, joins her other hand to Frankie's where it grips her waist. Frankie keeps kissing her, keeps holding on. After a long time, the energy between them settles. There’s a strange ordinariness to the next moments, as they take turns in the bathroom, drink some water, chuckle about their naked legs and decide to keep them that way, lie back down together. Frankie’s spooned her before, but now it’s like Grace’s nerve endings are uncapped. She feels every point of contact, every gentle breath.

She can’t sleep, and this time it’s obvious Frankie can’t either. Frankie bends her head, kisses Grace just above the collar of her pajama top. “You said you have to keep going,” Frankie whispers. “Can I touch you more?” 

Grace nods, a real genius move in the dark. “Yes,” she says, voice thick like she might cry. She finds Frankie’s hand curled up against her ribcage, maneuvers it between her legs. “Go slow?” Grace knows she will. She’ll stay with her as long as it takes. 

Frankie moves against her, slow and steady. She talks in a sleeping house whisper. “Grace, honey, this feels so good, I want to make you feel good all the time—is this good, is this okay—you know, my life has been that big question mark, Q for question, Q for queer, and I already knew it, but now I _know_ it—oh God, here, it’s like I can feel it even though I’m touching you—I don’t want to just do this with you in the dark, even though I know we just started doing this, and it’s dark, and that’s fine, but I want a capital Q life—”

The touches intensify, and Grace gasps. “All the time,” she says.

“Us?”

“Yeah.” It’s a miracle she can speak, but Frankie’s fingers urge her on. “Starting tonight.” 

“Oh, Grace.” Frankie presses her face more deeply against the back of Grace’s neck. “What do you need?”

“Um, go a little faster, I’m—”

Frankie speeds up, goes hushed, whispers _There_ against Grace’s skin. Grace comes in flames, chokes back a too-loud cry. 

“Good,” Frankie murmurs. “You just have to be quiet tonight. Not for long.” 

They stay close for sleep, Frankie’s grip loosening only slightly when she goes under. Grace’s sleepy thoughts pull against her like taffy. She’s had her own version of Frankie’s question mark, the mysterious presence taunting her with subjectless reminders. A queer ghost, maybe, who visited and visited, asked her what was missing. It’s been with her so long. It’s given her so many chances, has asked her to change so many times. And she has, in small, steady ways, and it’s nearly broken her heart. Now the possibilities it suggested seem friendly, and they come not from a visitor but from her own body. What would it be like to face her most exhausting, tedious decisions, all her problems with stopping and starting—drink, work, talk, eat—with that queer ghost resolved? All those questions of what to do with her body. With such a big question answered, can she change? In the morning, she’ll feed herself without that presence for the first time in her entire life. In the afternoon, when the Christmas-y drinks come out, there won’t be a ghost over her shoulder, wondering almost out loud if she’s in the right place, with the right person, doing the right things. She won’t have to speak over it, or work against it. 

She imagines herself invited to a wedding, returning the RSVP card with a request for a vegetarian meal for her plus one, Frankie Bergstein. She imagines herself buying movie tickets, Frankie kissing her on the cheek while she tries to talk to the ticket seller. She imagines a family dinner, holding hands with Frankie at the table. A queer life. A lesbian life. The words are beautiful in the dark, in her thoughts. 

.

It’s good that Grace worked so hard the night before, because she’s perfectly useless on Christmas morning. She thrums with happiness, with exhaustion. It’s good that she worked, but Frankie’s right, too: coffee and presents. The stars of the show.

The non-believers among the grandchildren woke early all the same, and even now that they’ve been up for awhile it’s still dark enough outside for the Christmas tree to cast a multicolored glow against the still-hazy window. Grace looks around the room at Brianna happy with her inexplicable boyfriend, at the relief in Mallory’s eyes every time Maddie and Macklin show the twins a toy and say “Look what Santa brought you!” The air wafting in from the kitchen smells like waffles, and only a little bit like burning, because Frankie told Grace to sit on the couch, promised to take care of preparing the breakfast people might want to eat after all. 

“Okay, help yourselves,” Frankie calls. Everyone gets up but Grace, who sits alone for a moment, lets her eyes focus and defocus and focus again on the lights reflecting in the window. A minute later, the couch shifts next to her, and Frankie lands with a plate with two waffles, two forks, two piles of fruit. When they're all gathered again, everyone starts to eat, the room busy with food and compliments. Frankie looks at Grace. “Hey,” she whispers. “No worries either way, but if you’re comfortable with it, sit closer and I’ll put my arm around you.” 

_All the time_ , Grace thinks, remembering the easy promise. After checking to make sure the plate in Frankie’s lap is balanced, she moves closer. Frankie’s arm encloses her, and with the touch lands a great and unmysterious joy.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading. Feedback means a lot to me, so please do comment to let me know what you thought! I welcome all feedback, including constructive criticism.


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